Today, Talking Points Memo notices a trend in GOP campaign ads:

...race tinged ads about Democrats wanting to give free dollars to hordes of Mexican illegals. Scratch the surface of any competitive race out there. You'll find it.

And yesterday, Think Progress noted that the "Secure Fence Act" signed by Dubya is a transparently empty gesture: "authorizing" the fence that nativists are calling for, but not paying for it.

The GOP is clearly concerned that the nativist facation of their base is going to stay home Election Day, because those folks are acutely aware that Dubya sides with the corporate, cheap labor faction of their base.

So Republican leaders trying to snooker their own people, with nasty blame-shifting ads and bogus bills.

As noted here before, it is the corporate-nativist split that prevented immigration reform legislation (good or bad) from getting passed this year.

And back in March, LiberalOasis discussed the potential fallout of such a failure:

Party leaders will have failed to have contained their nativist wing and in turn, failed to present a welcoming party for Latinos.

Meanwhile, the nativists may harbor resentment because the House bill never was taken seriously by party leaders, which could hurt turnout in the fall.

Will signing the "Fence" bill appease the nativist camp and save GOP turnout? Unclear.

The Lou Dobbs take seems to be representative: mixed.

It's remarkable how long it has taken to get to even this point. But ... as critical as we are in this broadcast of an administration that has refused to provide border security and to do anything on illegal immigration, this, one can reasonably hope, was an important first step and not gamesmanship.

But one thing we can be sure about is that the desparate "race-tinged" ad campaign is a severe setback to the GOP's long-term project to add the Latino vote to its overwhelmingly white coalition -- which the party needs to do if it wants to be a majority party in the future, as American diversity continues to flourish.